Saturday, July 15, 2006
The Rich Get Richer
My work shirts are in the laundry right now so what better to do with my time than make a blog entry? A couple posts ago, I spoke about racial differences in tipping. In the post I made a promise to talk about economic differences in tipping, so that's my goal today.
A recent situation should sum up my feelings toward rich people, specifically middle-aged, rich, white women: The other day, I took an order out to a newer section of town where all the homes cost anywhere from $750,000-$1,000,000. I pulled up to the house, probably one of the lower-end ones, around $800K. The order total was $45.62. The woman (middle-aged and white) handed me a $100 bill, asking if I could break it. Normally, the answer would be no, but I happened to have enough change with me for it and I explained to her "Alright, your change will be $54" (before any of you readers get nitpicky, I will remind you that I've pointed out in earlier posts that we don't carry around coin change, so I did not have her $.38 on me; besides, you're supposed to tip).
I began counting out the woman's change, and she said to me, ever so politely, "just give me $52 back." I think now is an appropriate time to remind my readers that I deliver in Texas, and lately the temperature has been above 100 degrees while I work.
So let's reiterate:
-$45.62 order
-100+ degrees outside
-$800K house
-Paid with $100 bill
-$2.38 tip.
From my experience, almost all rich, middle-aged, white women are like this. We have another who lives in a $600-750K house and will tip $2, no matter what the size of the order is or how long it takes. Two whole dollars.
HOWEVER, rich elderly men and women are saints. Absolute saints. One of the communities we deliver to is a "senior living" complex, so we deliver to a lot of elderly people. Most (not all, of course) of them are very generous with their tips and, in fact, some of my best tips in the past couple years have come from that area.
Another exception: we have one customer who has absolutely no qualms about overtipping his servers. Jerry Jones is the owner of the Dallas Cowboys football team. His partner, whom I will not name, happens to live in our delivery area. After receiving a $27 tip from him on a $24 order the other day, I learned that when he dines in at Napoli's he generally leaves anywhere between $30 and $50 for his waiter.
So anyway, while there are some exceptions, the general observation is that rich people are poor tippers, especially rich white women. Unless they're overweight. Overweight rich women are quite jolly and usually will tip nicely.
A recent situation should sum up my feelings toward rich people, specifically middle-aged, rich, white women: The other day, I took an order out to a newer section of town where all the homes cost anywhere from $750,000-$1,000,000. I pulled up to the house, probably one of the lower-end ones, around $800K. The order total was $45.62. The woman (middle-aged and white) handed me a $100 bill, asking if I could break it. Normally, the answer would be no, but I happened to have enough change with me for it and I explained to her "Alright, your change will be $54" (before any of you readers get nitpicky, I will remind you that I've pointed out in earlier posts that we don't carry around coin change, so I did not have her $.38 on me; besides, you're supposed to tip).
I began counting out the woman's change, and she said to me, ever so politely, "just give me $52 back." I think now is an appropriate time to remind my readers that I deliver in Texas, and lately the temperature has been above 100 degrees while I work.
So let's reiterate:
-$45.62 order
-100+ degrees outside
-$800K house
-Paid with $100 bill
-$2.38 tip.
From my experience, almost all rich, middle-aged, white women are like this. We have another who lives in a $600-750K house and will tip $2, no matter what the size of the order is or how long it takes. Two whole dollars.
HOWEVER, rich elderly men and women are saints. Absolute saints. One of the communities we deliver to is a "senior living" complex, so we deliver to a lot of elderly people. Most (not all, of course) of them are very generous with their tips and, in fact, some of my best tips in the past couple years have come from that area.
Another exception: we have one customer who has absolutely no qualms about overtipping his servers. Jerry Jones is the owner of the Dallas Cowboys football team. His partner, whom I will not name, happens to live in our delivery area. After receiving a $27 tip from him on a $24 order the other day, I learned that when he dines in at Napoli's he generally leaves anywhere between $30 and $50 for his waiter.
So anyway, while there are some exceptions, the general observation is that rich people are poor tippers, especially rich white women. Unless they're overweight. Overweight rich women are quite jolly and usually will tip nicely.
# posted by D @ 1:59 PM 
